Good riddance.
As I'm sure everyone knows by now, Jerry Falwell is dead.

Steve Benen is a lot more charitable than I am. I'm generally not the sort to dance on people's graves, no matter how repugnant I think they were in life. I refrained on my blog from shredding Reagan after he died, despite his avowed support for death squads and terrorists and other stains on his legacy.

But Falwell has been a blight on this nation for over 30 years. Through a combination of racism, Taliban-style religious fundamentalism, and good old-fashioned omni directional bigotry, he devoted his life to setting back the causes of science, civil rights, religious freedom and human progress wherever possible. He built a media empire by appealing to ignorance and people's base natures, and used the power of that empire to defraud the faithful and harm those who did not conform to his bitter, narrow, hateful view of God.

The nation, indeed the world, is better with him gone from it.

It's tempting to think of him as a kooky but harmless televangelist. There is truth to this: he should be an object of scorn and ridicule, even in retrospect. But he was not harmless. Resist the temptation to write him off as an aberration--there are others behind him, waiting to take his place. The American Taliban, otherwise known as the hardcore religious right, is to this day doing constant and ongoing harm to this country. Never forget Falwell's part in that. Never forgive it. And never cast a vote that will allow his ilk to retain or resume control over any part of this country.